Smokers who give up the habit before the age of 44 were found to increase their life expectancy by nine years compared to those who continue to puff.
The new research found that people who quit smoking before they hit their forties can live for almost as long as people who never smoked.
So it’s not too late to give up the habit…
It’s general knowledge that the tobacco habit is known to cut at least 10 years off a person’s lifespan, but apparently not for people who throw out the fags before they hit 44.
“Quitting smoking before age 40, and preferably well before 40, gives back almost all of the decade of lost life from continued smoking,” study leader Prabhat Jha, from the University of Toronto told the Daily Mail.
“That’s not to say, however, that it is safe to smoke until you are 40 and then stop,” he said.
“Former smokers still have a greater risk of dying sooner than people who never smoked. But the risk is small compared to the huge risk for those who continue to smoke.”
His findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Jha’s team found that people who quit smoking between ages 35 and 44 gained about nine years and those who quit between ages 45-54 and 55-64 gained six and four years of life, respectively.
The study compliments others done on the tobacco habit in the past.
Women and men who smoke both lost a decade of life.
Current male or female smokers ages 25-79 had a mortality rate three times higher than people who had never smoked. People who had never smoked were about twice more likely to live to age 80 than were smokers.
